Alberto Magnelli - abstract painter

Self-taught artist whose work became known as Concrete Art

Animated Tension (1953): An example of the abstract art of
the Italian painter Alberto Magnelli

The abstract painter Alberto Magnelli, who became a leading figure in the Concrete Art movement, was born on this day in 1888 in Florence.

Concrete Art is described as abstract art that is entirely free of any basis in observed reality and that has no symbolic meaning. It had strong geometric elements and clear lines and its exponents insisted the form should eschew impressionism and that a painting should have no other meaning than itself.

The movement took its name from the definition of concrete as an adjective rather than a noun, meaning ‘existing in a material or physical form’.

It became Magnelli’s focus after he moved to Paris in 1931. Until then, he had experimented in various genres.

Alberto Magnelli taught himself to paint
while on holiday in rural Tuscany

He was born into a comfortable background in Florence, his father coming from a wealthy family of textile merchants.  He never studied art formally but would spend hours in museums and churches looking at paintings and frescoes. He particularly admired the Renaissance artists Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello, and Piero della Francesca.

Magnelli’s first paintings were landscapes, which he began to produce while on holiday in the Tuscan countryside.  His work was good enough for him to submit to the Venice Biennale, as a result of which he made his first sale in 1909.

By 1915, he had moved towards painting in abstract style, having become part of a circle of artists in Florence in which the Futurist Gino Severini was a prominent member and having met Cubists such as Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger.

After the First World War, in which he did compulsory military service, he continued to paint entirely abstract works but was unhappy that the avant-garde movement in Italy appeared to be supportive of Fascism and returned to painting quiet Tuscan landscapes, and figure studies. These had echoes of the Metaphysical style of Italian artists Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà.

Some of Magnelli's works, such as The Readers (1931), had
 echoes of the Metaphysical movement in Italian art

Towards the end of the 1920s, suffering a crisis in confidence, he almost gave up painting but decided to return to Paris in the hope of making a fresh start. There he joined the Abstraction-Création group.

Following the invasion of France by the Nazis, during the Second World War, Magnelli and his future wife, Susi Gerson, went to live in Grasse with several other artists. Some of the group, including Gerson, were Jewish so they were forced to hide. Because conventional art materials were in short supply, Magnelli created textural geometric collages using materials such as corrugated cardboard, emery cloth, music paper, stitched wire, and metal plates.

He also made paintings on schoolchildren’s wood-framed slate boards. Many of these were geometric compositions constructed from flat areas of colour and inscribed white lines, while others were inscriptions of purely geometric lines. It was the beginning of Concrete Art. He again exhibited at the Venice Biennale and major galleries organised retrospectives of his work.

Following the Second World War, Magnelli returned to Paris which was to be his home for the rest of his life.  He died there in 1971.

The Giubbe Rosse has been serving customers in Florence's
Piazza della Repubblica since 1896

Travel tip:

Florentine artists of Magnelli’s era used to meet at the Caffè Giubbe Rosse in Piazza della Repubblica, which took its name from the red jackets - giubbe rosse - the waiters still wear to this day. When opened in 1896, it was called Fratelli Reininghaus after the German brothers who founded it. The writer and poet Alberto Viviani called the Giubbe Rosse a "fucina di sogni e di passioni - a forge of dreams and passions".

The central square in Sansepolcro, Tuscany

Travel tip:

Sansepolcro, which is the birthplace of Piero della Francesca,  is a town of 16,000 inhabitants situated about 110km (68 miles) east of Florence and 38km (24 miles) northeast of Arezzo. The historic centre is entirely surrounded with fortified walls, built in the early part of the 16th century. The centre of the town is the Piazza Torre di Berta, named after the 13th-century tower of the same name, off which can be found the impressive Palazzi Pichi and Giovagnoli and the 14th-century cathedral, dedicated to St John the Evangelist.

More reading:

Giorgio di Chirico, founder of the Scuola Metafisica 

Carlo Carrà and the Futurist movement

Giorgio Morandi - master of still life



Also on this day:

1586: The birth of 'lost' composer Claudio Saracini

1878: The birth of career burglar and cult figure Gino Meneghetti

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Don Bosco – Saint

Father and teacher who could do magic tricks

Giovanni Bosco was born in 1815 soon after the
end of the Napoleonic Wars

Saint John Bosco, who was often known as Don Bosco, died on this day in 1888 in Turin.

He had dedicated his life to helping street children, juvenile delinquents and other disadvantaged young people and was made a saint by Pope Pius XI in 1934.

Bosco is now the patron saint of apprentices, editors, publishers, children, young delinquents and magicians.

He was born Giovanni Bosco in Becchi, just outside Castelnuovo d’Asti in Piedmont in 1815. His birth came just after the end of the Napoleonic Wars that had ravaged the area.

Bosco’s father died when he was two, leaving him to be brought up by his mother, Margherita.

Mama Margherita Occhiena would herself be declared venerable by the Catholic Church in 2006.

Bosco attended Church and grew up to become very devout. Although his family was poor, his mother would share what they had with homeless people who came to the door.

While Bosco was still young, he had the first of a series of dreams that would influence his life.

He saw a group of poor boys who blasphemed while they played together, and a man told him that if he showed meekness and charity he would win over these boys, who were his friends.

Don Bosco used magic tricks to get the
attention of street children

Not long afterwards he saw a travelling group of circus performers and magicians and realised if he learnt their magic tricks he could use them for his own purposes. He staged a magic show for other children and ended by inviting them to pray with him.

He later decided to become a priest, but had to work for two years in a vineyard before he found a priest, Joseph Cafasso, who was willing to help him achieve his ambition. Cafasso would later be made a saint for his work ministering to prisoners and the condemned.

After studying for six years, Bosco was ordained as a priest in 1841. He was assigned to work with poor children in Turin and visited prisons which housed large numbers of boys between the ages of 12 and 18 in deplorable conditions.

Bosco used his magic tricks to get the attention of the street children and then shared his message with them. He developed teaching methods based on love rather than punishment.

His mother began to help him and by the 1860s they were responsible for finding shelter for hundreds of boys.

He negotiated new rights for apprentices to prevent them from being abused and beaten. He encouraged some of the boys he met to consider becoming priests, but was accused by other priests of stealing boys from their parishes.

Don Bosco is commemorated around the
world. This statue is in Rondo, in Spain

The Marquis of Cavour, Chief of Police in Turin, regarded his open air services as political and a threat to the state. Bosco was interrogated on several occasions but no charges were ever made against him.

In 1859 Bosco established the Society of St Francis de Sales to carry on his charitable work helping boys. The organisation has continued to help children all around the world to this day.

Some of the boys helped by Don Bosco also decided to work to help abandoned boys. One of these was John Cagliero, who later became a Cardinal.

Bosco also founded a group of religious sisters to do for girls what he had been doing for boys. They became known as the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.

After Bosco’s death on January 31, 1888, his funeral was attended by thousands and the call for his canonisation came immediately.

Pope Pius XI had known him personally and declared him blessed in 1929 and a Saint in 1934. He was given the title Father and Teacher of Youth. His feast day is celebrated all over the world on this day.

In 2002, Pope John Paul II was formally petitioned to declare Bosco the Patron Saint of stage magicians.

Bosco’s extraordinary life was featured in the 1935 film, Don Bosco, directed by Goffredo Alessandrini and starring Gianpaolo Rosmino as the priest.

The house in which Don Bosco was born is in Becchi, a
hamlet just outside Castelnuovo d'Asti

Travel tip:

Castelnuovo d’Asti in Piedmont, which was near the hamlet where Bosco was born, has been renamed Castelnuovo Don Bosco in honour of the saint. It is situated about 20km (12 miles) east of Turin and about 25km (15 miles) northwest of Asti. One of the main sights is a medieval tower, one of the few remains of the castle, which was built before the year 1000 and gave the town the name, Castelnuovo.

The Basilica of Don Bosco was built between 1961 and 1966

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Don Bosco was built in Frazione Morialdo at Castelnuovo Don Bosco between 1961 and 1966 close to the saint’s birthplace. In front of the church there is a large square designed to accommodate large numbers of pilgrims who visit the Basilica. It is also possible to visit the birthplace of Don Bosco, which is still standing at Via Becchi 36.


More reading:

Francesco Faà di Bruno - the wealthy academic who helped the poor

The reformed gambler who devoted himself to caring for the sick

Why Padre Pio is one of the most popular saints in history

Also on this day:

1788: The death in Rome of British royal exile Bonnie Prince Charlie

1933: The birth of Sicilian Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano

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Tito Schipa – operatic tenor

Star on two continents whose voice divided opinions

The tenor Tito Schipa enjoyed success
on two continents

Tito Schipa, one of the most popular opera singers in the first half of the 20^th century who sang to packed houses in the United States and South America as well as in Italy, was born on this day in 1888 in Lecce.

The tenor, whose repertoire included Verdi and Puccini roles in the early part of his career and later encompassed works by Donizetti, Cilea and Massanet, rose from modest beginnings to find fame with the Chicago and New York Metropolitan opera companies in America.

He also appeared regularly in Buenos Aires in Argentina and later in his career starred regularly at Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Rome Opera.

Some critics said his voice lacked power and had too narrow a range for him to be considered a genuinely great tenor, yet he overcome his perceived limitations to become extremely popular with the public wherever he performed.

Schipa was born Raffaele Attilio Amedeo Schipa in the Le Scalze district of Lecce, a fairly working class neighbourhood in the Puglian city.  His family were of Albanian heritage. His father was a customs officer.

His talent was first noted by a primary school teacher in Lecce and soon afterwards by a Catholic bishop, Gennaro Trama, a music enthusiast who had a reputation as something of a talent scout, and who encouraged him to join his local seminary.

Schipa often performed opposite the
soprano Amelita Galli-Curci

Eventually, feeling his opportunities in Lecce were limited, Schipa made the bold decision to move to Milan to work with Emilio Piccoli, an opera singer who had become a distinguished voice teacher.

With Piccoli’s help he was able to make his stage debut in Vercelli in Piedmont as Alfredo in a performance of Verdi’s La Traviata in 1909 at the age of 21.

He was by no means an overnight success, spending the next few seasons appearing at small opera houses around Italy. But in 1913 he had the opportunity to travel to South America. He had already displayed his linguistic versatility by singing in Spanish for audiences in Madrid and he was a hit with operagoers in both Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.

On his return to Italy, a brilliant performance in Puccini’s Tosca on his debut at Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1914 earned rave reviews and suddenly Schipa was regarded as a major talent.

He developed a professional relationship with the soprano Amelita Galli-Curci, whose voice blended perfectly with his. It was alongside Galli-Curci that he made his US debut in Chicago in 1919, having been invited by the Scottish soprano Mary Garden and the impresario Cleofonte Campanini, who were managers of the Civic Opera.

His debut in Verdi’s Rigoletto began a 20-year association with the Chicago Opera Company, although from 1932, as the financial recession hit Chicago in particular, he was dividing his loyalties between the Illinois city and the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Schipa waves farewell from the steps of
an American ship en route to New York

Schipa’s career was boosted by the growing popularity of the gramophone. He made numerous audio recordings of arias and songs during his career from 1913 onwards. His 78-rpm set of Donizetti's Don Pasquale, made in 1932, is considered so good that it remains in circulation on CD.

Away from the theatre, Schipa led a colourful social life, although his associations with characters in the circle of the Mafia boss Al Capone often resulted in him losing money through dubious ‘investments’ presented to him.

He was married for the first time in 1920 to the French actress Antoinette Michel d'Ogoy, with whom he had two daughters, Elena and Liana.  During the Second World War he had a long affair with the Italian actress Caterina Boratto, although it was to another Italian starlet, Teresa Borgna, that he was married after Antoinette’s death in 1947. The marriage produced a son, Tito junior.

Schipa was a conductor as well as a singer and towards the end of his career, after he had retired from the operatic stage, was the director of a singing school in Budapest.  He had another singing school in New York, and was living in Manhattan at the time of his death, in 1965, at the age of 78, from diabetes.

Piazza Duomo in the Baroque city of Lecce

Travel tip:

Lecce, Schipa’s birthplace, has such a rich cultural heritage it is sometimes called the Florence of the South. It is the main city on Puglia's Salento peninsula. It became a centre for the ornate architecture called Barocco Leccese. Its historic centre, compact and easy to explore, is filled with Baroque monuments. There are many restaurants, too, that offer fine food typical of Puglia.

The Piazza Cavour is at the heart of historic Vercelli

Travel tip:

Vercelli, where Schipa made his operatic debut, is a city of around 46,500 people situated about 80km (50 miles) northeast of Turin near the Sesia river.  It is one of the oldest urban settlements in northern Italy, founded in around 600BC and has numerous Roman relics and several noteworthy towers, including the Torre dell’Angelo that overlooks the market square, Piazza Cavour.  The Basilica di Sant’Andrea is one of the best preserved Romanesque monuments in Italy.

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Maria Bertilla Boscardin – wartime nurse

Brave nun was prepared to die caring for others

A depiction of Maria Bertilla Boscardin
from Catholic Church literature

Maria Bertilla Boscardin, a nun who was canonised for her devoted nursing of sick children and air raid victims in the First World War, was born on this day in 1888 in Brendola, a small town in the Veneto.

She was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1952, just 30 years after she died, and made a saint by Pope John XXIII nine years later.

It was one of the quicker canonisations of modern history. Sometimes many decades or even hundreds of years pass before a person’s life is recognised with sainthood. 

Boscardin’s came so swiftly that relatives and some of the patients she cared for were present at her canonisation ceremony. Indeed, her father, Angelo, was asked to provide testimony during the beatification process.

Born into a peasant family, who knew her as Annette, her life in Brendola, which is about 15km (9 miles) southwest of Vicenza, was tough.  She was seen as rather a slow-witted child, mocked by her peers and unkindly nicknamed ‘the goose’ even by the local priest. Her father, a drunkard, was often abusive and violent.

She wanted to become educated but her attendance at school was at times only sporadic because her family required her to work.

Her ambition to become a nun was in part to escape from this unhappy childhood.  She was turned down by the first order to which she applied but the Sisters of St Dorothy in Vicenza admitted her to their convent, assigning her the religious name Maria Bertilla.

After a tough upbringing, Maria found her
calling as a carer for sick children

Her first job was at the order’s large charity hospital in Treviso, where she worked in the kitchen, peeling potatoes.  What she is said to have told the novice-mistress of the convent indicated that she had very low self-esteem but she asked for their help to become a better person.

She found her calling after being assigned to work with the children being treated at the hospital, many of whom were suffering from diptheria, and needed constant attention.

One of the doctors at Treviso later testified that many of the children, separated from their families for the first time, arrived at the hospital so agitated that they would cry constantly for several days.

But Sister Bertilla, he recalled, “succeeded in rapidly becoming a mother to them all. After two or three hours the child, who was desperate, clung to her, calmly, as to his mother and followed her wherever she went.”

When the First World War spread to Italy in 1915, Bertilla vowed she would make the ultimate sacrifice, if necessary, to care for the wounded.  An entry in her diary read: ‘Here I am, Lord, to do according to your will, under whatever aspect it presents itself, let it be life, death or terror.'

As Treviso came under attack following the defeat of the Italian army at the Battle of Caporetto, she is said to have stayed with patients who could not be moved, praying and providing marsala wine for those who needed it.

After the war, she was sent to a sanatorium to care for soldiers with tuberculosis. Next she was sent to a seminary to care for survivors of an epidemic.

The statue of Maria Bertilla Boscardin at the
church of Saints Peter and Paul in Cagnano

She was unlucky with her own health, however.  Discovered to have a tumour in her early 20s, after which she underwent surgery, she fell ill again in her early 30s.

The cancer had recurred. The only hope of a cure was to have another operation. But she was much weaker this time and died in October, 1922, two weeks after her 34^th birthday.

Having suffered so much cruelty as a young girl and left home with little sense of self-worth, Maria Bertilla ultimately left a deep impression on those who knew her.

She was initially buried in Treviso but after crowds regularly gathered at her grave, it was decided to erect a tomb for her in Vicenza. A memorial plaque placed on her tomb described her as "a chosen soul of heroic goodness ... an angelic alleviator of human suffering in this place."

The tomb became a pilgrimage site where several miracles of healing were said to have taken place.

A number of churches in the area around Vicenza have been dedicated to Saint Maria Bertilla Boscardin, including one at Via Antonio Federico Ozanam in the west of the city and another in the village of Cagnano, about 40km (25 miles) south of Vicenza, which has a statute of her.

Travel tip:

The house of the Sister Teachers of Santa Dorothea, where Maria Bertilla Boscardin took vows, is located in Contrà San Domenico in Vicenza. It contains a chapel dedicated to her which was built in 1952, in view of her beatification. In the same year the urn containing the remains of the saint, originally buried in Treviso, were placed under the altar table.  In 2002 thanks to architect Paolo Portoghesi the altar - previously in burnished copper - was replaced with one in white marble and the urn containing the remains of the saint was placed in front of it.

Waterways lined with weeping willows are a
common sight in Treviso

Travel tip:

For many visitors to Italy, Treviso is no more than the name of the airport at which they might land en route to Venice, yet it is an attractive city worth visiting in its own right, rebuilt and faithfully restored after the damage suffered in two world wars. Canals are a feature of the urban landscape – not on the scale of Venice but significant nonetheless – and the Sile river blesses the city with another stretch of attractive waterway, lined with weeping willows. The arcaded streets have an air of refinement and prosperity and there are plenty of restaurants, as well as bars serving prosecco from a number of vineyards. The prime growing area for prosecco grapes in Valdobbiadene is only 40km (25 miles) away to the northeast.

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Roberto Assagioli – psychiatrist

Harsh imprisonment sparked new psychiatric theories

Roberto Assagioli, the pioneering psychiatrist who founded the science of psychosynthesis, died on this day in 1974 in Capolona in the province of Arezzo in Tuscany.

Roberto Assagioli was the pioneer of
a holistic approach to psychiatry

His innovative psychological movement, which emphasised the possibility of progressive integration, or synthesis, of the personality, aimed at finding inner peace and harmony. It is still admired and is being developed by therapists and psychologists today.

Assagioli explained his ideas in four books - two published posthumously - and the many different pamphlets he wrote during his lifetime.

In 1940 the psychiatrist had to spend 27 days in solitary confinement in prison, having been arrested by Mussolini’s Fascist government for praying for peace and encouraging others to join him. He later claimed this experience helped him make his psychological discovery.

Assagioli was born under the name of Roberto Marco Grego in 1888 into a middle-class, Jewish background in Venice.

His father died when he was two years old and his mother remarried quickly to Alessandro Emanuele Assagioli. As a young child Roberto was exposed to art and music and learnt many different languages – creative inspiration which is believed to have helped his work in psychosynthesis.

When he was 18, Assagioli began to travel, and while in Russia he learnt about social systems and politics.

Assagioli as a young man

Assagioli received his first degree in neurology and psychiatry at Istituto di Studii Superiori Pratici di Perfezionamento in Florence in 1910. Then he began writing articles that criticised psychoanalysis, arguing for a more holistic approach.

After training in psychiatry at a hospital in Zurich, he opened the first psychoanalytic hospital in Italy, but felt unsatisfied with this field of psychiatry.

He married Nella Ciapetti in 1922 and they had a son, Ilario.

After being released from his solitary cell in Regina Coeli prison in 1940, he returned to his family, but later in the war their farm was destroyed and they had to go into hiding in the mountains above Arezzo.

Their son, Ilario, died at the age of 28 from lung disease, thought to have been caused by the harsh living conditions he experienced during the war.

The cover of Assagioli's second book,
published a year before he died.

After the war, Assagioli returned to his work on psychosynthesis, preferring a spiritual and holistic approach to psychology.

He was inspired by Freud and Jung and felt that love, wisdom and creativity were important components in psychoanalysis.

Assagioli corresponded with Freud but they never had the chance to meet.

He gave much of the credit for his inspiration for psychosynthesis to his solitary confinement for nearly four weeks in 1940.

He said he used his time in prison to exercise his mental will by meditating daily because he had realised he was able to change his punishment into an opportunity to investigate his inner self.

Assagioli died on August 23, 1974 at the age of 86 from unknown causes.

Since his death, psychosynthesis has continued to be embraced as a comprehensive psychological approach for finding inner peace and harmony.

The Institute of Psychosynthesis has its headquarters
on the northern outside of Florence

Travel tip:

Roberto Assagioli’s former home in Via San Domenico, on the northern outskirts of Florence on the way to Fiesole, is now the headquarters of the Institute of Psychosynthesis, where conferences about the science are regularly held. Although Assagioli wrote just two books about his ideas, the Institute houses a rich archive of documents that includes a large quantity of hand-written material by him.

The bridge across the Arno into Capolona

Travel tip

Capolona, where Assagioli was living when he died, is a small town near Arezzo in Tuscany, located on the right bank of the River Arno. It is referred to as the gateway to the Casentino area, which is rich in castles, churches and old bridges. A few kilometres away to the north lies Caprese Michelangelo, the small village where the great artist Michelangelo was born.

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Enea Bossi - aviation pioneer

Claimed first pedal-powered flight in 1936

Enea Bossi emigrated to the United
 States after the First World War

Enea Bossi, the aviator credited - albeit disputedly - with building the world's first human-powered aeroplane, was born on this day in 1888 in Milan.

It was claimed that in 1936 Bossi's Pedaliante aircraft flew for approximately 300 feet (91.4m) under pedal power alone.

Piloted by Emilio Casco, a robustly built major in the Italian army and an experienced cyclist, the Pedaliante - or pedal glider - is said to have taken off and covered the distance while remaining a few feet off the ground, although in the absence of independent verification it is not counted as the first authenticated human-powered flight, which did not take place until 1961 in Southampton, England.

The following year, as Bossi attempted to win a competition in Italy offering a prize of 100,000 lire for a successful human-powered flight, Casco succeeded in completing the required 1km (0.62 miles) distance at a height of 30 feet (9m) off the ground.

The Pedaliante, which had been built by the Italian glider manufacturer Vittorio Bonomi, was disqualified, however, on account of having used a catapault launch to achieve its altitude. Bossi, in fact, was ineligible for the prize because he had taken American citizenship after emigrating shortly after the First World War, and the competition was open only to Italians.

Bossi was an aeronautical pioneer throughout his career.

Bossi's Pedaliante plane was powered by pedalling

He created the first Italian-designed aircraft, the first landing gear braking system and the Italian Navy's first seaplane. After moving to the United States, he built a seaplane for the New York City Police Department, the first to be deployed by the force. Later he designed the first aircraft made from stainless steel.

Bossi graduated from the Instituto Tecnico in Lodi, not far from Milan, in 1907, specialising in physics and mathematics. He had already become fascinated with flight after the Wright brothers’ Flyer became the first heavier-than-air machine to be airborne in December 1903.

He became only the second person in Italy to have a pilot's licence and, with the financial support of a far-sighted father who did not share the general scepticism about flying, set about designing a glider that could carry a petrol-driven engine.

Modelled on the Wrights' Flyer, the design won a silver medal at the first international aviation meeting in Reims, France, in 1908 and the plane was built in Bossi’s own factory the following year.

Bossi, his son Charles and the Higgins helicopter

In December 1909 it made its first successful flight. The same year, Bossi developed his braking system and the Italian Navy’s first seaplane.

The possibility of going to the United States came about after he began working as the Italian representative of Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company – based in Buffalo, New York - for whom he secured rights for the production of the Curtiss Model F by the Zari brothers, at their workshop in Bovisia, near Milan. The first of these was demonstrated to the Italian Navy on Lake Como in September, 1914.

During the First World War, Bossi served as both a bomber pilot and a flight instructor for the Italian Navy. The economic and social difficulties in Italy that followed the war persuaded him to move permanently to the United States in 1918.

Living first in New York and later in Montclair, New Jersey and Philadelphia, he was granted US citizenship in 1925.  He married Flora Kelher, a Swiss-German girl who was living in Connecticut, and they had two sons, Charles and Enea Junior.

Bossi at his desk in the United States in the 1930s

In the US, he worked on aviation fuel systems before, in 1928, he founded the American Aeronautical Corporation, based in Port Washington, New York, to build Savoia Marchetti seaplanes under licence and a considerable number of these were purchased by the police department of New York City.

In around 1930 Bossi moved to the EG Budd Manufacturing Company, where he built the first stainless steel aircraft, an amphibious biplane now preserved at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

After his time back in Italy in pursuit of the human-powered flight prize, he returned to the US, where he built a helicopter prototype for Higgins Industries of New Orleans.

After retirement, he moved to with his family to Dayton, Ohio, where he died in January, 1963.

The Church of Sant'Ambrogio on Piazza Gramsci in Cinisello

Travel tip:

The first flight of the Pedaliante took place at an airfield juts outside Cinisello, nowadays a town of around 75,000 inhabitants called Cinisello-Balsamo.  It falls within the Milan metropolitan area, between Sesto San Giovanni and Monza, about 10km north-west of the city centre.  It is a pleasant town of which the Piazza Gramsci is the central square, overlooked by the 17th century church of Sant'Ambrogio.  Cinisello's Villa Ghirlanda Silva Cipelletti owned one of the first landscaped gardens in Italy. It now houses the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

The Piazza della Vittoria in Lodi

Travel tip:

Lodi, the city in Lombardy that was the scene of the first battle between the troops of the young Napoleon Bonaparte and the Austrians, retains a mostly Medieval layout, starting from the remains of the Visconti Castle, built by the ruling Visconti family alongside the city walls in 1370. The Piazza della Vittoria, ringed with colonnades and overlooked by the cathedral and the Palazzo Comunale, is the focal point.  Nearby, the churches of San Francesco and Sant’Agnese are worth a look, as id the 13th century church of San Lorenzo.

More reading:

From Rome to the North Pole - the historic airship journey from Ciampino airport

Aeronautical genius famed for helicopters and the Vespa scooter

How aviation made Camillo Castiglioni the richest man in Europe

Also on this day:

1939: The birth of Terence Hill, Venetian actor with an English name

(Picture credits: Lodi piazza by Gabriele Zuffetti via Wikimedia Commons)

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